The High Court has ordered the surrender of Zsolt Siklosi to Hungary under a European arrest warrant so he can serve a one-year prison sentence imposed in 2007. Mr Justice Binchy ruled on 15 December 2020 that the requirements of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003 had been met and rejected the objections raised by the respondent.
The warrant, issued by the Tatabánya Court of Appeal on 27 July 2017, concerns four offences arising from a domestic incident: assaulting the respondent’s former spouse and mother-in-law, preventing his wife and daughter from leaving a room, and damaging his wife’s mobile phone. The judgment said 11 months of the one-year sentence remained to be served. The respondent did not dispute that the described actions would constitute offences in Ireland.
This was the second surrender application concerning the same offences. In 2015, the High Court refused an earlier application after information from Hungary led the court to understand that a retrial had been ordered and the respondent was being sought for prosecution rather than to serve his sentence. In the present proceedings, the issuing authority confirmed that the respondent’s application for a retrial had been unsuccessful and that surrender was sought to enforce the sentence imposed by the appellate court in 2007.
The respondent argued, among other points, that his absence from later proceedings connected with the activation of the suspended sentence breached his trial rights. The sentence had been activated following a conviction for failing to pay child support, an offence the judgment said is not an offence in Ireland. The court held that those later proceedings were not the “trial resulting in the decision” for the purpose of the statutory inquiry. It identified the relevant trial as the 2007 appellate decision, at which the issuing authority said the respondent had been summoned and represented by a defence lawyer he appointed.
The judge also rejected claims of abuse of process, insufficient information in the warrant and other grounds of objection. He noted that the earlier refusal did not prevent a new application after the circumstances changed. The order is for surrender under section 16 of the 2003 Act in relation to the offences in the warrant. The judgment did not determine a separate allegation concerning another matter in Hungary, which it treated as outside this application.